Sunday, February 06, 2000
Ohio team builds bridge in Honduras
Donated project may help Baker-Con/Span gain access to new business
BY JENNY CALLISON
Enquirer contributor
Baker-Con/Span International has built a bridge reconnecting Honduras with its past and helping the nation build its future.
The bridge, a joint venture of Dayton, Ohio-based Con/Span Bridge Systems and Monroe-based Baker Concrete Construction Inc., was the first transportation infrastructure project to be completed by a U.S. firm following Hurricane Mitch. It provided the final segment of the restored highway linking Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa and the popular tourist destination of Valle de Angeles.
The 11-module structure took seven hours to assemble on site. By contrast, a normal bridge construction project there would require four to six months.
For Baker-Con/Span, the project was a creative end-run around bureaucracy and a successful application of modular bridge technology in a remote setting. It also might prove to be a bridge to future projects in Central America and South America for the Ohio entrepreneurs.
In late October 1998, Hurricane Mitch dumped several feet of rain on land already saturated by seasonal rains. Massive mudslides rearranged the terrain; homes and crops were swept away. Torrents of water rushed along riverbeds, breaking through levees as large as 6 feet tall and 30 feet wide. More than 5,000 Hondurans drowned or died in landslides. At least 1,000 miles of roads and more than a hundred bridges were left impassable.
Mitch caused $5 billion in damage to a country whose national budget in 1998 was $1.1 billion.
In March 1999, the Department of Commerce sponsored a trade mission to Honduras. Representatives of 16 U.S. companies explored opportunities to assist the beleaguered nation and establish business contacts at the same time. Delegation member Steve Lydy, vice president of business development for Baker, looked for a way to help.
Baker and Con/Span officials believed that a combination of Baker's concrete experience and Con/Span's expertise in modular bridge technology could provide an efficient solution to replacing many of the small bridges destroyed by the hurricane. The two companies, which had worked together before on construction projects, formed Baker-Con/Span International but still faced interminable red tape in getting permission to do business in Honduras. Meanwhile, people in the Valle de Angeles region couldn't get their goods to market.
Mr. Lydy decided that the company should just donate the $150,000 bridge.
“Within a month, a site was selected, the engineers were assigned, and we had a memorandum of understanding with the Honduran government,” Mr. Lydy said.
In the spirit of the project, that memorandum was handwritten on a linen napkin at the Hotel Maya in Tegucigalpa.
“All the participants signed. That became our contract,” Mr. Lydy continued.
The commitment made, Baker-Con/Span had to manufacture a delivery mechanism for the structure as well as making the bridge itself. The site, 18 miles from rain forest in mountainous terrain, made transportation a challenge.
“A crane was brought across the mountains from 10 hours away,” Mr. Lydy said.
The bridge components were cast in Venice, Fla., shipped to Honduras, then trucked almost 200 miles south. Local people were trained to work on the project.
“There were times that I wondered if we had bit off more than we could chew,“ Mr. Lydy said.
A crowd gathered to watch. Among the observers were representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which had been involved in the negotiations.
“When the first piece was set, people applauded,” Mr. Lydy recalled.
“A lot of frustration had been building (on the part of Hondurans),” Con/Span President William D. Lockwood said. “By the time we got to it, it had been a year since Mitch and nothing permanent had been done. Then — boom! — in went the bridge.”
The structure was dedicated Oct. 29, a celebration that involved Honduran first lady Mary Flake de Flores, a Cincinnati native. By Nov. 15, the road was complete.
Both Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Baker hope that the Valle de Angeles bridge will lead to new markets for them in Central America and South America. Baker-Con/Span International has submitted a proposal to USAID to establish a concrete plant in Honduras and to build 50 to 100 bridges there in the next two years. The proposal is being evaluated, and the company was asked to submit additional information as recently as Monday, Mr. Lydy said.
“The techniques and benefits of this system have been very well received,“ Mr. Lydy said. “It's unfortunate that a disaster brought us to this point, but it brought to the government's attention that better technologies were needed to replace their aging infrastructure.”
“This is their own people and their own materials. (The proposal) will put a real industry down there,” Mr. Lockwood said.
Mr. Lydy said Baker-Con/Span's construction process is more environmentally sensitive and less wood-intensive than techniques typically used in Honduras. The Hondurans are anxious to conserve what remains of their forests, he said, and to minimize disturbance of other ecosystems.
With recent floods in Venezuela, Baker-Con/Stan is eager to apply its technology to infrastructure repair needs in that country as well. Mr. Lydy will present the company's capabilities at a seminar this month hosted by the Department of Commerce.
“We see the same applications being accepted in South America,” he said.
TWO COMPANIES THAT SPAN THE YEARS
Con/Span Bridge Systems was spun off of LJB Inc., a civil engineering design firm established in 1965 in Dayton, Ohio.
In 1981, LJB engineers began developing technologies that would efficiently produce small bridges, bridge replacements and environmentally acceptable underground storage structures.
Since the first prototype was introduced in 1986, more than 2,000 Con/Span projects have been installed in 46 states, Canada and the Caribbean.
Baker Concrete Construction Inc. began in 1968 as Baker Cement. The enterprise moved from residential concrete products into light commercial and industrial, finally expanding in 1991 into paving and highway projects.
The firm, headed by Daniel L. Baker, now has branch offices in Houston; Orlando, Fla.; Avondale, Ariz.; Norwalk, Ohio; and Canton, Mich.
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